London office ditches 16 car parking spaces .. to make room for 70 bikes

Its a shame there are not more incentives... our office owner recently refurbed the mens toilets, and I suggested they used one cubicle for a shower.  There is plenty of space and they are rarely used.  Didn't get anywhere.

Its a hilly 16 mile route to work, so I work up a sweat- I can only ride in on dress-down days!

New developments in the City of London are normaly car free apart from disabled parking, and have to provide cycle parking a facilities if they want planning permission granted.

This means with the speed that offices in the city being redevelpoed, lots of car parking spaces are going and being replaced with cycle parking.

https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/services/environment-and-planning/planni...

Page 140:

"1 [cyle parking] space per 125 m2 of gross floorspace (gross external area)"

Page 141:

"Developments in the City should be car-free except for designated Blue Badge spaces. Where other car parking is exceptionally provided it must not exceed London Plan’s standards."

The Democratic Cyclists' Republic of Oxford welcomes this news.

OTOH a small block of flats was built behind my old offices: seven flats, condition on the planning permission that they couldn’t have any car parking. There wasn’t really anywhere the builders could have put car parking anyway. All that happened was that all the surrounding office car parks had to take steps to stop the new residents parking there “illegally”. I know: people move into flat with no car parking and are surprised to find they’ve got nowhere to park their cars (more than one of the flats had more than one car, going by the number of cars which appeared).

I still think there'd be a market for a "shop" that offered secure bike parking, showers, lockers, a workshop, cafe and a small stock of essential consumables. Ride to town, leave bike there, shower, change and then walk (or public transport, hire bike etc) the last little bit to the office. In the evening, reverse that, collect your safely stored (and perhaps cleaned/repaired) bike and ride home.

Used to work in a bike shop in town (many years ago, way before Boris Bikes, segregated lanes etc) and even back then I thought it would be viable. That said the fact that no-one has really done it makes me think I'm probably missing some fatal flaw in the plan somewhere.

Great to see companies and businesses taking this on directly though and it being publicised, hopefully many more companies will follow.

IanVisits should be looking around a bit more - the Broadgate Group development on Bishopsgate has a condition that no car parking spaces are provided for the tenants, and a closely controlled regime for motor vehicle access & deliveries will be operated. As part of this a Brompton Hire uniot will be incorporated in the development - both for the tenants, and with public access to hire bikes.

This will join the 'Axa' unit that is just outside Kings Cross, and has such heavy demand, that users need to book in for a space to return a bike, as much as they need to make sure a bike will be in one of the 8 lockers to hire, as the unit often has over 8 bikes out on hire, and has to be 'refilled'.  HSBC has a 'private' unit at Canary Wharf for staff use, and a further unit is in Finsbury Square.

I understand that for most of these well used docks, the level of hires covers the operating costs, with the limiting factors being a site available at a sensible price, and the  costs of setting up the  unit to start the operation.  However the London examples how the opportunity presented by a significant, journey generating, development can deliver a local and focussed bike hire option.

Fantastic news!  When the developers themselves start putting in cycle facilities, you'd better believe cycling has really arrived.

I'm confident that the light will dawn on our politicians within the next ten years, or even slightly sooner.